Lost in Hollywood

A Long, Exhausting Journey

"I still love you"

What can you say to something like that? Isn't there only one possible answer: I love you too? But what if you can't make yourself say that? What if you're not quite there yet? What if just thinking about saying those words again, to anyone, feels like a dagger through your chest?

After staring at Eli's confession on the screen for an eternity, Sky simply replied, Thank u, for telling me, and put away her phone, knowing she wouldn't be able to sleep that night. But sleep found her almost instantly and she slept better than she had in weeks, in months, surely better than she had ever since Cody had died.

No nightmares troubled her that night.

But the next morning she began thinking about Eli's text again, and her chest ached so that it was difficult to keep her breakfast down.

He still loved her, or at least that's what he said.

His words felt like the truth. Surely he wouldn't lie about something like that, not after everything they had been through. Surely this wasn't just some kind of a sick game to hurt her again.

Sky wanted to believe he meant it. That he had told her because he wanted her to know where he stood. To put the ball in her court.

Too bad that Sky had no idea what to do with that figurative ball. She didn't exactly feel like she could keep any more balls in the air. Her hands were too full as it was.

But—

Don't I still love him too? Did I ever stop?

That thought was painful, it was too big and too full of sharp edges for her to handle.

I suppose I do love him. I have, ever since the chemistry classroom, the Halloween dance, the kiss in his room when he was just Eli, and I was just me, before everything went wrong between us.

That was the truth, whether she wanted to think about it or not. But at the same time - oh, so many things had gone wrong, so horribly wrong, oh so many times. She couldn't go back, no matter how much she wanted to. They were different people than they had been back then. She had loved him and trusted him, and he had hurt her time and time over, and the last time wasn't even that long ago. He had stopped talking to her when she had needed his support more than ever, and whatever reason he gave her for doing that, it still hurt. Maybe he had changed, but maybe he hadn't, and—

And then there was Cody's death.

Oh God, would that pain ever go away? It was a constant heavy, crushing weight on Sky's chest, still just as suffocating and raw as two months ago when she had thrown herself at him, buried her hands in his bloodied hair, and seen the light go out in his eyes. She could still smell the salty scent of the tears that rolled down his burning cheeks, and the coppery tang of his blood coated her tongue.

No.

No, there was no space in her heart for anyone. Not yet. Not as long as every time she closed her eyes, she saw Cody. He still gripped her heart in his ghost fingers, and the space where love could exist inside of her chest was still filled with sharp, piercing pain. There was no room for love there. Sky didn't know if there ever would be.

Of course, it would have been fair to tell Eli just that, instead of saying thank u, but maybe he got the message anyway. His confession of love in her inbox, silent and kind, was soon buried under other messages of more urgent matters.

He didn't bring the subject up again.

Still, on the following days when the whole world seemed to be rearranging itself around what had happened, Sky was happy they had had that conversation.